Give Liberty a Chance!

God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies…

And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and His works.

- Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 1850

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Crunch Time

With just two weeks left in the First Regular Session of the 95th General Assembly most of the priorities passed by the Missouri House of Representatives remain lingering or stalled in the Missouri Senate.At this time, the Missouri House of Representatives and the Missouri Senate have Republican majorities.

This session the House has identified a number of priority issues and passed the bills that express the intent of those priorities.These priorities include:

These bills have been passed by the House and are now in the Missouri Senate.With the exception of the economic development bill, none of the other bills have been passed out of Senate committees and are not available for debate by the Missouri Senate, much less have the opportunity for the Missouri Senate to vote on these bills and get them to the Governor’s desk.

This legislative agenda addresses the interests and needs of Missouri families.This agenda puts Missouri on the path to prosperity from reductions to the state income tax liability for Missouri families, reducing the tax burden of our small businesses, and improving our economic development toolkit to assist qualifying businesses to stay and locate in Missouri preserving and creating family supporting jobs.

This agenda preserves our constitutional rights relating to public prayer to the protection and preservation of our 2nd Amendment rights to asserting our state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment.

The Missouri House believes taxpayers should be protected from the false philanthropy of bureaucrats and politicians with the taxpayer bill of rights and reforming our tax code to reward saving and individual industry while promoting tax simplification through the fair tax.

With two weeks left and the lack movement by the Missouri Senate on these issues time is running out.Next week will be consumed with finalizing the state budget for the next fiscal year which must be completed by the constitutional deadline of 6pm on Friday, May 8.After that the General Assembly must adjourn for the year by the constitutional deadline of 6pm on Friday, May 15.

It is now crunch time.No bill should be considered dead until the gavel falls on May 15, but these bills must be passed out of committee and put on the Senate calendar to have any chance for debate and passage.

Capitol Connection Archive

Quote of the Week

“The States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones.I wish, therefore … never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.”